CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Urbanization promotes habitat degradation because it involves irreversible processes that homogenize habitats and favor the exclusion ofnative species. This research evaluates rodent community structure at different levels of urbanization in Misiones, Argentina. We expectthat rodent communities are less diverse in more highly urbanized areas and that communities differ between each level of urbanization.To assess these hypotheses, rodent capture sessions were carried out from July 2017 to March 2020, totaling 21,985 trap-nights. Alpha andbeta diversity were calculated for each level of urbanization. We captured a total of 684 individuals belonging to 8 sylvan-native and 2commensal-exotic species. Species richness was greatest and evenness was lowest in natural protected areas. The native species Akodonmontensis was the most abundant, while the remaining 7 native species represented less than 23% of the total of captures. The rural areashowed the second-highest richness, and the community was principally represented by 2 native and 2 exotic species. The periurban areawas ranked third in richness and with the highest evenness, dominated by A. montensis followed by Mus musculus and Rattus rattus. Theurban area exhibited the lowest richness represented only by the 2 commensal-exotic species. In agreement with our expectations, theseresults show a negative association between urbanization level and small rodent diversity, evidenced by a reduction in the number ofnative species in highly urbanized areas.

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